“The fabliau, then, is a short story that is a tall story. It combines a burly blurting of dirty words with a reveling in humiliations that are good unclean fun. A popular venture that is keen to paste—épater—everybody (not just the bourgeoisie), it is the art of the single entendre. Highly staged low life, it guffaws at the pious, the prudish, and the priggish. High cockalorum versus high decorum…. The introduction here, like the translator’s note, tells well the story of the comic tales, anonymous for the most part, usually two or three hundred lines long, of which about 160 exist.”
Quote by Christopher Ricks
Author
Christopher Ricks
Christopher Ricks is a renowned literary critic known for his profound interpretations and critical analyses of poetry. Born in 1933, his work has had a significant impact on the field of literary criticism since the 1960s. more
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Source: Pulphead: Essays
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